clockers (1995) https://youtu.be/8_UU0ZfVMos?si=g6aSYqC7LaC4lU99
inside man (2006) https://youtu.be/sYNUp5rAZJo?si=Np8X1CqGkXXIK--K
when i first watched inside man a few years ago i loved the above scene even tho i didnt care for the movie and at the time the scene felt very jack thompson early 00s core. in retrospect and within context of both clockers and lee’s work on nba2k16 i find that it’s a beautiful scene portraying all of lee’s neuroses and fears. the games in both scenes are overly violent and gorey and v critical of a kind of baseless and “satirical” type of game that he was sort of prescient of. in 95 the most extreme types of games were like doom/mortal kombat or some kind of fmv horror things but they were not semi realistic fully 3d open world games where u have full control and a full arsenal, but by 2006 that was the biggest type of game. for more or less the entire decade of the 2000s most every game that tried to examine crime in semi realistic metropolitan cities did so crudely and cruelly, with rlly nothing to say about real world cases of violence. empty games with fake worlds that try to say smth but hide behind a sort of calculated satire and irony. rockstar games for the most part are saying nothing about america or the major and minor cities dotted alongside each coast. it’s kind of insane to watch the clockers clip and remember that games didn’t look like that or play like that almost 30 years ago and they never rlly did or at least not the kinds of games that would play like the fictional gangsta vr game. in looks and aesthetics alone it looks more like some indie project like smth that would be made by theresa duncan or thecatamites, open world crime dramas didn’t look like psych-horror like they do in clockers, they looked like the game in inside man. a case could be made that inside man is a spiritual successor to the 1995 film, I haven’t seen inside man in in years so im def not the person to do that but also these are prob the only movies in lee’s career that can solidly be described as crime dramas. enough of his post 90s work is about his fears and neuroses surrounding masculinity and childhood being proven right post 2000, to see aspects of black culture and trauma commercialized and commodified like never before by corporations that don’t gaf. think it’s super interesting that in both scenes the kids are playing portable devices to distract themselves from real world problems but the games just mirror what happens in the films worlds, super interesting stuff!!!
idk all of this is v all over the place but damn clockers is such a cool and sad and sincere movie and i found it v interesting to compare how digital and commercial inside man and the game in that movie is to how weird and disorienting clockers and the game gangster is. fucking idk i bought nba2k16 forever ago just bc i rlly like spike’s work across all mediums. I don’t care about sports or sports games but it seems like he did smth sort of new and interesting w it so yk that’s good ill never play that but it’s always cool when ppl not involved w game development work on one. fucking idk watch some of his more underseen stuff,, even the ones that aren’t great have moments of rlly good stuff.
didn’t realize the vr headset was real and shelved lol
inside man (2006) https://youtu.be/sYNUp5rAZJo?si=Np8X1CqGkXXIK--K
when i first watched inside man a few years ago i loved the above scene even tho i didnt care for the movie and at the time the scene felt very jack thompson early 00s core. in retrospect and within context of both clockers and lee’s work on nba2k16 i find that it’s a beautiful scene portraying all of lee’s neuroses and fears. the games in both scenes are overly violent and gorey and v critical of a kind of baseless and “satirical” type of game that he was sort of prescient of. in 95 the most extreme types of games were like doom/mortal kombat or some kind of fmv horror things but they were not semi realistic fully 3d open world games where u have full control and a full arsenal, but by 2006 that was the biggest type of game. for more or less the entire decade of the 2000s most every game that tried to examine crime in semi realistic metropolitan cities did so crudely and cruelly, with rlly nothing to say about real world cases of violence. empty games with fake worlds that try to say smth but hide behind a sort of calculated satire and irony. rockstar games for the most part are saying nothing about america or the major and minor cities dotted alongside each coast. it’s kind of insane to watch the clockers clip and remember that games didn’t look like that or play like that almost 30 years ago and they never rlly did or at least not the kinds of games that would play like the fictional gangsta vr game. in looks and aesthetics alone it looks more like some indie project like smth that would be made by theresa duncan or thecatamites, open world crime dramas didn’t look like psych-horror like they do in clockers, they looked like the game in inside man. a case could be made that inside man is a spiritual successor to the 1995 film, I haven’t seen inside man in in years so im def not the person to do that but also these are prob the only movies in lee’s career that can solidly be described as crime dramas. enough of his post 90s work is about his fears and neuroses surrounding masculinity and childhood being proven right post 2000, to see aspects of black culture and trauma commercialized and commodified like never before by corporations that don’t gaf. think it’s super interesting that in both scenes the kids are playing portable devices to distract themselves from real world problems but the games just mirror what happens in the films worlds, super interesting stuff!!!
idk all of this is v all over the place but damn clockers is such a cool and sad and sincere movie and i found it v interesting to compare how digital and commercial inside man and the game in that movie is to how weird and disorienting clockers and the game gangster is. fucking idk i bought nba2k16 forever ago just bc i rlly like spike’s work across all mediums. I don’t care about sports or sports games but it seems like he did smth sort of new and interesting w it so yk that’s good ill never play that but it’s always cool when ppl not involved w game development work on one. fucking idk watch some of his more underseen stuff,, even the ones that aren’t great have moments of rlly good stuff.
didn’t realize the vr headset was real and shelved lol
Only sports game I'll still play to this day, wish the servers were still up though.
one of the best of its kind, but looking back all of these games are garbage